The central tenet of what Star Trek fans call the "Star Trek Philosophy"
is the Prime Directive (or Starfleet's General Order Number One). It was
never explicitly stated onscreen, but a general statement of it is
that no Starfleet personnel shall ever interfere in the development of a
less technologically advanced civilization. If interference was made
accidentally, then all attempts must be made to minimize or reverse the
damage. All ships and personnel are expendable if necessary to uphold
the Directive.

As a general statement of KYFHO MYOB (Keep Your Frelling Hands Off, Mind
Your Own Business), the Prime Directive is useful enough. The time during
which it was developed was the height of the Vietnam Wara massive
abuse of Federal power that should have taught the FedGov a lasting
lesson in the stupidity of butting into complex matters of which it has
no comprehension.

In the nearly forty years since the Prime Directive was first employed
in Star Trek, successive generations of producers and writers have used
the idea to justify all manner of moral relativism. I discussed this at
some length in my essay, "Keelhaul Enterprise!".

One of the central tenets of that essay discussed what might have happened
in the episode "Cogenitor" had the Enterprise been crewed by free
individuals self-governing guided by the Zero Aggression Principle (as
opposed to a boatload of Statist thugs). I suggested that when confronted
with a culture that enslaves individuals, it is moral to assist in liberating
them.

Not surprisingly, this generated some criticism based on current events.
If I support the notion of a fictional group of free individuals liberating
a fictional group of slaves, then to be consistent, I must naturally support
the recent "liberation" of Iraq by the FedGovand by extension any other
meddling the FedGov might wish to undertake.

I've written about this before, but apparently my conclusionbased
on the Zero Aggression Principleis so far outside the norm that it's
difficult to comprehend.

From all accounts, Saddam Hussein was an initiator of force on multiple
levels and over a long period of time. He certainly deserved killing, and
I would have whole-heartedly supported any any private individual or company
who wanted to line him up in their sights.

However, from the ZAP perspective, there is no moral justification for
GOVERNMENT to become involved. Government warfare initiates force against
two groups of individuals:

1. The governed, since government cannot so much as place one brick
atop another without stealing the resources to do it.

2. Innocent bystanders ("collateral damage" in Governmentese).

In addition to inherently initiating force, supporting government warfare
has the side effect of encouraging tyranny. Much as people would like to
think, it is impossible to isolate one action of government from another.
In reality, one cannot say, "I support government liberating Iraq, but I
don't support government taking guns away from people."

The actions of government are inseparable, linked to each other via
complex, tortuous, sometimes incomprehensible activities by beaurocrats.

You cannot, for example, isolate the Non-War in Iraq (it's technically not
a war without a Declaration by Congress, regardless of what the Neocons
have to say about it). In order to have the Non-War in Iraq, you must
also have domestic victim disarmament, the USA PATRIOT Act, PATRIOT II,
Federal Airport Rape Centers (what the Neocons like to call "airport
security") and drug and alcohol prohibition.

To support government warfare, it is necessary to have a central
government with unlimited authority. The moment you support government
warfare, you automatically support unlimited authority.

The price of government warfare is furthering the police state. You
can't get one without the other, much as we'd like to imagine that you can.

Conversely, a free individual, self-governing his or her behavior guided
by the Zero Aggression Principle, may at any time assist a victim of
initiated forceincluding slaves or oppressed individuals. The ZAP
only prohibits initiation of force, not bystanders coming to the victim's
rescue.

However, the ZAP prohibits an individual initiating force against someone
else in the process of rendering aid. The ZAP would prohibit assisting a
mugging victim by spraying the entire area around the mugger with a
Thompson Submachine Gun
and in the process kill forty bystanders.

Where government cannot raise an army without stealing the resources to
do so, private individuals and companies can raise funds voluntarily. Where
government cannot conduct a war without accidentally killing innocents,
a private individual or company must be selective or face the wrath of
the innocents' families and friends.

This is certainly a totally different paradigm than what's been practiced
throughout the majority of human history. Based on the century and a half
in which a similar philosophy propelled the human species from
subsistence-level farming to grasping at the stars, it's clearly a
workable philosophy.

The typical criticism at this point is that no free individuals presently
exist who are capable of doing what I suggest. Since there are none in
existence, critics say, it naturally falls to government to do the job
instead.

It's not a question of what "libertarian brigades" sprang up to fight
terrorism or liberate oppressed individuals. It's a question of the
FedGov (and State and LocalGovs) having long since conspired to make it
impossible.

The "libertarian brigades" would historically have been the
militiasomething that's been marginalized for nearly a decade.
Since the Murrah Building was bombed, militias have been considered
violent, dangerous extremists. I can't imagine joining onenot
because I have any objection to their stated goals, because I don't.
I wouldn't join because I don't want to be one of the "usual suspects"
the FedGov rounds up when it discovers that raping little old ladies
at the airport is a pointless exercise in futility and needs someone
else to blame for terrorism.

So, given:

The FedGov has marginalized citizen militias virtually out of existence.

The FedGov steals 30% of the money individuals might use to fund a
private militia (and condones theft of another 20% by State and LocalGovs).

The FedGov has successfully indoctrinated whole generations of
urban Americans to hate and fear guns on sight.

The FedGov controls the "free" press to an extent that it can be
considered complete, therefore all debate of public policy is kept
within tight boundaries.

Libertarians make up a tiny fraction of the population and have
absolutely no political input and damned near no moral input.

Given that, who's to blame that there were no citizen militias to locate
the 9/11 perpetrators? Government, of course. The FedGov primarily, with
the majority of StateGovs close behind.

Do I wish I had the time, training, expertise, and most of all MONEY to
run the North Sioux City Regional Militia? Of COURSE I do. But I DON'T.
The FedGov makes it impossible.

The line of reasoning that supports government warfare is:

There is a job that needs doing badlyin fact, if it's NOT
done, we're all going to die.

Government is the only entity extant that can do the job.

Therefore, I must support government doing this job.

The problem with this reasoning is twofold:

1. In the specific case of terrorism, it is unclear that the job
needs doing that badly. The September 11 perpetrators would never even have
ATTEMPTED their acts but for domestic gun victim disarmament. It makes
far more sense to combat the problem by eliminating its cause (gun
control) than creating an American police state.

2. This line of reasoning ignores one very important given: that
in empowering government to do the job you're certain needs doing, you
empower it to do all kinds of things that don't need doingand in
fact are utterly antithetical to the job you think needs doing.

Support government on ANYTHING, and you support it on EVERYTHING.

You don't get to pick and choose the government you getit forces
itself on you. The Non-War in Iraq doesn't exist in a vacuum, after
all. It exists in the context of a million other things the FedGov does
that makes things infinitely worse for everyone.

The price of government fighting terrorism abroad is that it can fight
terrorism at home. This leads toat besta Pyhrric victory.

All is far from lost, however. The police state Dubyuh and his cronies
are building is inherently unstable. It willlike the Soviet Union
before itultimately collapse of its own weight. It will probably
do so much sooner than anyone thinks, simply because the Soviet Union had
constant aid from the West to keep it propped up. Since there is no such
country to prop up the American police state, it won't take seventy years
for it to collapse.

If we're really, REALLY lucky, therefore, all of Dubyuh's sick, twisted
dreams about how he can control everyone in America for their own good
will be implemented. The entire mess will collapse out from under
Dubyuh, he'll find himself out of a job all that much sooner, and the
rest of us can finally get on with our lives free of government interference.

Freedom, Immortality, and the Stars!

William Stone, III is a computer nerd (RHCE, CCNP, CISSP) and Executive
Director of the Zero Aggression Institute. He
seeks the Libertarian Party's nomination for the 2004 Senate race in South Dakota.

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